Constitutional Calculus: The Math of Justice and the Myth of Common Sense 1st Edition by Jeff Suzuki (PDF)

Description

How math trumps tradition in promoting justice, fairness, and a more stable democracy.How should we count the population of the United States? What would happen if we replaced the electoral college with a direct popular vote? What are the consequences of allowing unlimited partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts? Can six-person juries yield verdicts consistent with the needs of justice? Is it racist to stop and frisk minorities at a higher rate than non-minorities? These and other questions have long been the subject of legal and political debate and are routinely decided by lawyers, politicians, judges, and voters, mostly through an appeal to common sense and tradition.But mathematician Jeff Suzuki asserts that common sense is not so common, and traditions developed long ago in what was a mostly rural, mostly agricultural, mostly isolated nation of three million might not apply to a mostly urban, mostly industrial, mostly global nation of three hundred million. In Constitutional Calculus, Suzuki guides us through the U.S. Constitution and American history to show how mathematics reveals our flaws, finds the answers we need, and moves us closer to our ideals. From the first presidential veto to the debate over mandatory drug testing, the National Security Agency’s surveillance program, and the fate of death row inmates, Suzuki draws us into real-world debates and then reveals how math offers a superior compass for decision-making. Relying on iconic cases, including the convictions of the Scottsboro boys, League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, and Floyd v. City of New York, Suzuki shows that more math can lead to better justice, greater fairness, and a more stable democracy. Whether you are fascinated by history, math, social justice, or government, your interest will be piqued and satisfied by the convincing case Suzuki makes.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review A breath of fresh air. It was a reaffirmation that mathematics should be used more often to make general public policy.―Charles Ashbacher, MAA Reviews Book Description How math trumps tradition in promoting justice, fairness, and a more stable democracy. About the Author Jeff Suzuki is an associate professor of mathematics at Brooklyn College. He is the author of Mathematics in Historical Context and Constitutional Calculus: The Math of Justice and the Myth of Common Sense. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐In this book, math professor Jeff Suzuki shows us how constitutional and legalistic issues can be viewed or modelled from a statistical or mathematical angle and the advantages that such an approach can provide over traditional approaches based on more abstract and ambiguous notions of “fairness,” and “justice.”The constitutional and legalistic issues discussed include: how to get census results more quickly and more economically but still fairly accurately than the currently used labor- and resource-intensive methods; how to conceptualize the advantages and disadvantages of using electoral college votes over popular votes in the election of our president and how to decide whether our process for electing our president needs changes or not; potential approaches to challenging the legality of gerrymandering / congressional redistricting practices and arguing against racial profiling; what aspects of the jury selection and decision making processes have been found important to “fair” jury trials; what approaches can be used to argue that a person’s Eighth Amendment right under our Constitution (Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted) was violated.The core mathematical concepts covered in this book are not very complicated by themselves. Readers familiar with probability and statistical concepts such as sampling, standard deviations, confidence intervals, and inferencing etc.; Bayes’ Theorem; Game Theory; Markov Chains; social network analysis; and data clustering will find it easiest to follow along, but the author does provide necessary introductions to these concepts and the explanations for the core concepts are generally understandable.The difficulties I encountered have more to do with how the discussion doesn’t always flow smoothly for one or more of the following reasons: (A) introductions to the mathematical concepts are embedded in the middle of each chapter, requiring readers to lose their train of thought in order to switch gears; (B) those introductions are sometimes unnecessarily long-winded so by the time the author returns to the primary topic under discussion, readers not only have to switch gears again but also to backtrack to remind themselves of where the author left things off so that they could reconnect to that discussion thread; and (C) in following the discussions on how a mathematical concept can be applied to the topic at hand, readers often have to contend with caveats and qualifications representing legalistic or mathematical nuances, wrinkles, and minutiae, all of which increase the cognitive load imposed upon the readers.Consider the chapter on Social Network Analysis, for example. The chapter begins with the description of a case where the punishment received for a drug-distribution-related offense might have been disproportionately harsher than usual. The suggested mathematical approach for arguing this uses Social Network Analysis, where a person’s status in a drug-distribution-network can be calculated as a function of the person’s degree of “centrality” or connectedness to other members in the network. To show this, the author launches into a very involved introduction to Social Network Analysis that shows not only how to calculate the aforementioned “centrality” measure but also other types of measures using the analysis of terrorist networks as the long-running example. Because the analyses of terrorist networks require some caveats, the author also goes into some details regarding how to address those caveats. While the latter discussion was personally interesting to me because I learned something new and interesting, that discussion was not necessarily needed to support what the author wanted to say about the applicability of Social Network Analysis to the case referenced at the beginning of the chapter, which is: Presumably, convicted offenders with similar status in a drug-distribution-network should receive similar sentences. Disparities in punishments that are too great might therefore be grounds for appeals to reduce harsher sentences to be more similar to the lighter sentences received by similar offenders.Overall, the subject matters covered in this book are interesting and substantive, and tackled creatively and discussed reasonably well. Some of the mathematical approaches discussed in this book have actually been used successfully to change the minds of politicians and legal thinkers. For example, after repeatedly failing to persuade politicians and courts to strike down draconian “three strikes you’re out” state laws as unconstitutional based on abstract “fairness” and “justice” arguments, opponents of such laws have been able to push alternatives to the law by using mathematical arguments similar to the ones discussed in the book (e.g., the cost of imposing a life sentence for those who commit nonviolent and property crimes far outweighs the cost of the crimes they would commit).I think the readability of the book, however, can be improved by perhaps separating out the introductions to the mathematical concepts into their own chapters, or to keep them more focused on only what’s really needed for readers to follow the main discussion thread. Cutting down on minutiae and digressions will also help.

⭐This was a very hard review to write.My bottom line upfront is that many readers will be disappointed by this book. My take is not that it is a “bad” book. It is chalked full of great research, interesting stories, and tales of statistics, but the book does not deliver in a significant way on its promised outcomes.I give the book three stars for exciting and engaging prose, five starts for having the guts to try and do a statistical analysis of the US Federal legal process, and four stars for interesting anecdotes of use to math teachers in motivating young, civic minded students. With equal weighting, that averages to four stars.I love math, science, and engineering. I am a big fan of understanding random effects. Whole portions of our modern technology depends on understanding and predicting the effects of random process.With eager hands, I cracked open Constitutional Calculus. The back of the dust cover said “mathematics can tell us how to build a better society.” Amen! Sing it brother!But, …, then, … well, I read the book.*sigh*Jeff Suzuki, the author, tells us many interesting anecdotes about the constitution, the law, and statistics, but it is not a gripping tale.(It is an adventure novel or political thriller written by a statistician. Have mercy on him! He tried!)Also, he does not give us any normative information, i.e., Jeff doesn’t really try to tell us how to make a better society (despite the promises of the dust jacket).The first major section talks through the US census and some of the math behind allocating members of the House. These allocations are based on the census results. One of the key points that Jeff hints at is that random sampling, if done properly, could save the US millions of dollars and years of time in conducting the census. Congress has insisted that the census is too important to be left to a random process.The second major section addresses a potpourri of issues of deliberate versus random government actions, e.g., stop and frisk, the relationship between jury size and guilty verdicts, etc.There was no consistent mathematical message that came out in the second half, but the stories are interesting.Jeff tips his political hand a smidgen by how he sets up his utility functions, i.e., how he measures the societal good of various decisions. A little tinkering with definitions would have led to conclusions on the opposite side of the argument, but Jeff wrote the book. He gets to tell the story how he likes.All in all, this is a useful book for a high school math teacher who is trying to engage his or her students interest in statistics.It is a disappointment if you are either a non-mathematically inclined person or a math person who wants to see societal value from math displayed in the book.

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